Next to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, a 'pdf' is probably the most used things whether you read academic documents, books or even reports. The word pdf actually stands for portable document format and it is nothing but a file format for not only creating but also sharing documents. These documents can be shared and created independent of any kind of software or hardware and does not even require anything like an operating system. This file format is used worldwide for sharing and storing electronic documents and this software is 'one software fits all'. The pdf was invented in 1991 by Dr. John Warnock in a project titled "The Camelot Project". This project is one of those revolutionary projects which paved the way for the electronic revolution and its very motto was "paper-to-digital revolution". The motto was made famous rightly so, because the three alphabets pdf actually changed not only people’s lives but also the way documents are created, shared and stored.

The creation of the pdf was more substantial than all other document formats and is the widely used format across the world. Although pdf was invented by Adobe, it is now maintained by the international organization for standardization and is used as an open standard now. This means, that any user anywhere in the world can download, install and use the pdf format for all their documents. A pdf can be read using the free acrobat reader (DC) software and it contains things like form fields, video, audio, business logic and links and buttons. An interesting and unique thing about a pdf is that pdf files can also be signed electronically. Although these things may not seem very substantial or powerful, however, when the pdf was first created all these minute details are what distinguished this format from all others

In addition to being ISO certified, pdfs can also be password protected, which means that pdfs not only maintain a certain quality and provide the users with the best of everything, a pdf also ensures maximum security for all kinds of documents and files that one wants to keep private. To overcome the nuisance of having to print out a pdf document, adobe has launched various mobile and web applications which give the users the utmost ease in not only creating and storing but also sharing pdf documents. Pdf files are used in academic institutes and workplaces around the world and there is a reason why almost everyone refers to a portable document as a pdf.